Anything produced independently is often scrapped before it has seen the light of day. In this contemporary era, influence and recommendation play a pivotal role in industry survival. Mass productions with ginormous budgets receive the most crowd responses and avid marketing is usually behind the countless reviews received by a project.
What mass productions lack, though, is the sincerity with which a filmmaker or a new songwriter, might produce his first big project. These creators are definitely not to be considered as mere amateurs at their job. Years of experience might guarantee quality content, yet, as a testament to raw talent, PS Vinothraj‘s Kottukkaali stands as a master class.
The gender debate has been ongoing since times immemorial. Thoroughly ingrained in Indian culture, it is chronically the cause of decaying dreams and trampled down ambitions. And when the issue of gender combines class structure and societal politics, it becomes a looking glass of a society, unable to grant true freedom to its citizens.
Delving into themes of an allegorical modern day witch hunting and several abstractions of repressed desires, Kottukkaali builds upon a chronicle that involves an adamant girl in love, a puberty ceremony procession, a rooster and a bull. It is a cinema that carries on with the viewer long after the ending credits roll. For a comprehensive look into how the caste system still underlines most of our societal structures and how all these structures crumple when exposed, PS Vinothraj’s storytelling is unparalleled.
Recently added to the huge repertoire of Amazon Prime Video, Kottukkaali initially premiered on 16th February 2024 at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival. The film has also succeeded in securing the ‘Grand Prix Award’ at the 22nd Amur Autumn International Film Festival held in Russia.
Widely acclaimed for her role as Meena, Anna Ben is vividly expressive and acts as the crux for the film. The metaphor that connects the lives of Meena and the rooster, indicates the predicament of Kottukkaali, no one is really free until we all attain freedom.
Bound under a circle of systematic oppression, it is interesting to notice how the women in the film also become the perpetrators of patriarchy, in spite of themselves suffering under the regime. Equally exuberant in his role is actor Soori who portrays the maternal uncle Paandi. By the end of the movie, Paandi also succumbs to the outcome of his deeds and unscrupulous past. The system spares no one and a lot is left to the imagination as the concluding message “The end of this journey is in your hands” rolls around.
A milestone in the genre of films that reach for beyond the limits of mere human perception, Kottukkaali is aimed at the dysfunctional Indian household. A film that does not serve a purpose is not befitting of the title of cinema at all, and PS Vinothraj’s powerful message works the double shift to leave an imprint upon the minds of the audience.
